


The Dark I Found You in, the Light I Found in You

by navaan



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Backstory, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Families of Choice, Getting Together, Lazarus Pit, League of Assassins - Freeform, POV Female Character, Possibly Attempted Rape/Non-Con situation, Romance, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-12 18:50:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4490706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nyssa finds Sara under dire circumstances and takes her in – but it's more than just a girl she found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dark I Found You in, the Light I Found in You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selden/gifts).



> Written for Sladen for the Rair Pair Fest 2015 exchange. There were honestly so many stories I wanted to write for you after reading your awesome prompts, it was hard to settle for something. :)

The air had gone still. The calm after the storm. 

Nyssa took a deep breath of the night air and carefully stepped out of the small doorway, leaving behind the two bodies lying dead on the floor. She still had blood in her hair, but she was confident that the night would help her conceal it. She knew there was no need to worry, as she carefully strode down the little alley, enjoying the cool breeze. The dank smells of the overpopulated city, the dirt of the alley, none of it counted when the wind promised rain.

She could have made her way over the rooftops, meeting her companions on the boat that would get them out of the city, back home to Nanda Parbat and her beloved father. But she wasn't in a hurry tonight; neither in a hurry to get away from the scene of the execution she'd performed, nor in a hurry to get back home.

Nanda Parbat had always been her home, her father always been the idol she looked up to. But sometimes it was hard to feel like yourself when you were home, with all the expectation, all the deference, all the responsibility that came with being the heir of Ra's al-Ghul, it could feel like a cage, a chain holding her down. She loved it. Loved her life as part of the League, loved to be her father's daughter, the heir to the one power in the world that could bring true order and justice. She wouldn't give it up for anything.

And still she yearned. But for _what_ she couldn't say. She just knew there had to be something more. Another calling, perhaps. A true mission.

Sometimes she thought she yearned to be worthy. To _inherit_. _Be_ the power. _Be_ justice.

But she loved her father and would rather have him live forever than even dream of leading the League of Assassins in his place.

Suddenly screams ripped through the tranquility of the night. But the screams did not come for that little dark room she left behind painted in blood. The source of the noise was somewhere before her. A girl was screaming. Desperate. Men were shouting in Chinese, laughing. She hated the sound instantly with every fiber of her being. She didn't need to see what was happening to know what was going on. Scum like that needed to be punished. No woman should ever be left to the mercies of wretches. 

“Leave me alone,” the girl was shouting in English.

A foreigner in this country, then. How had the stupid thing found her way here alone at night? Had she been taken? Sold? Nothing was impossible in the business of the impure.

Nyssa found herself hurrying along, the shadows her only cover. Her weapons were still wet with blood and if she did this fast she wouldn't even be late. But by the time she found the boat, saw the dirty sailors, trying to snatch a disheveled and equally dirty girl, trying to find her way of the junk they were trying to hold her on, she was surprised once again. The girls, thin and weak as she seemed, found an iron bar and grabbed hold of it, just as one of her assailants tried to grab her arm and drag her along back to his companions. With one fluid motion, without practice, but all the hidden skill of a fighter who hadn't yet learned the confidence of winning, she struck him down. The hit had been hard enough to make him bleed, blood splattering and clinging to her pale white face, making her glow with a sudden fire in the moonlight that didn't quite fit with her weakened and downtrodden state.

Nyssa knew beauty – and what she was seeing wasn't beauty exactly. It was the will to survive, the spark of true strength; it was the promise of extraordinary beauty in a skinny, famished girl. 

One of the men pulled a gun and Nyssa moved.

She was the night. She was fury.

And without any help or assistance she had mowed down two of the men before they even knew she was there. She took on a third one, kicking him in his midsection and pushing him back, raining down blows and readying her knives, when he raised another gun at her. But he hesitated as she smiled at him, daring him to shoot, confident that she would be faster, that in fact he was the one who would not walk away from this.

Then the harsh sound of a gunshot ripped through the night. Her last assailant fell over dead at her feet.

Over her shoulder she caught a glimpse of the girl, holding a glinting gun with both shaking hands, eyes wide and full of shock. 

Their eyes met. Calm gaze meeting wild, scared eyes. Her decision was made for her then. “Come with me,” she said, as the girl staggered away from her touch. She caught her by the arm, holding her gaze. “Come with me. I can teach you.”

She didn't say: “You can't survive alone.” She didn't say: “I'll keep you safe.” The girl had already tasted the truth of life.

And finally the girl lowered the weapon that she must have snatched from one of the bodies lying on the ground. 

She would come.

She had nowhere else to go.

* * *

Nyssa had many questions for her new charge, but didn't voice any but the most important one: “What's your name?” 

The girl so far had been unresponsive. “I'm sick of being dragged around,” she said in a surly vouce and looked at Nyssa defiantly. She'd eaten the food put before her. She'd allowed the blood to be cleaned away. But she hadn't given her trust. Not yet.

“You come with me and nobody will ever drag you around again. You saw what I can do. I'll teach you,” she repeated her initial promise.

“I killed a man tonight,” she said and looked as if she wasn't sure how to feel about that.

“Then be firm in your knowledge that he deserved it. Nobody should be allowed to treat others like these men were about to treat you.”

For the first time the blue eyes regarded her with something like cautious respect, not fear, not complacency. Something hardened in the expression and the girl finally answered her initial question: “I'm Sara.”

That night Nyssa heard “Sara” cry herself to sleep. She did not go to her, did not offer comfort. 

Life wasn't fair and only the strong would survive. And the strong had no use for pity.

Later the girl now know to her as Sara would tell her about the circumstances that had led her to the point where their paths crossed. Nyssa listened and didn't comment. Much of what the firl was talking about had implications greater than a simple misadventure. Her father would value the information.

“I'm just a stupid girl,” Sara finally said, “who wanted something that wasn't hers and ended up paying more than she had ever bargained for.”

“You are not just a stupid girl anymore though,” Nyssa said quietly. She did not explain herself. Sara would realize on her own that she hadn't been telling the story of the superficial party girl that had started the journey with her sister's boyfriend. She had told the story of a girl who had survived against all odds. Some metal needed to be tempered to become truly strong.

* * *

Her father regarded Sara with caution when she was brought before him for the first time. “Why did you bring her here?”

“I promised to teach her,” Nyssa said earnestly, secure in her knowledge that the League did not just turn away the talented. And what she had seen in Sara was something of a warrior, untrained, inexperienced, but skilled despite the lack of training. Her father would see it, too.

“She has no skills,” he said cautiously. “She should have died at sea.”

Nyssa made her point just as easily. “But she didn't.” 

“If she can indeed survive here,” Ra's finally said, “she can stay. We will test her, daughter. In a month's time we will put her to the test. Initiation is not a game for the weak.”

Despite his harsh words she was inclined to take this as a father's gift to his daugther, a sign of his trust in her skills as teacher, so she nodded, understanding the task ahead, accepting the challenge.

She wouldn't fail the task and so Sara could not fail the test.

* * *

“Again,” she shouted at Sara, who had lost her weapon when Nyssa had struck her arm with a well aimed hit. There was blood on her face; her lips had split when Nyssa had crashed her fist into Sara's face, not pulling her punches at all. She had the indecent urge to kiss it better. “You can do better. You _need_ to do better. And you _will_.”

But Sara didn't get up and didn't reach for her weapon. “I'm not that person, Nyssa,” she said. “I can't live like this.”

Nyssa was ready to strike her again, to advance on her and _make_ her fight back. Sara, she had already learned, responded well to pressure. When she doubted her own abilities she needed to be shown that her instincts were actually better than even she realized herself.

But Sara sat frozen, staring at the door of the training room and Nyssa suddenly aware of eyes watching her stopped and turned. “Father,” she said, but her father and his guards were already leaving again, having observed enough.

“See,” Sara said. “Your father knows I'm not cut our for this.”

“Sara!” She had explained over and over again that there was no giving up with the League. There was only mastering your tests and walking your path. There was only obeying orders and playing your part. There was no dropping out that didn't end with your death. Nyssa stalked closer and bent over Sara to look her in the eyes. “You are strong. Stronger than you allow yourself to be. You _will_ get up and fight me.”

But Sara only looked up at her sadly. “I know I can never go back, Nyssa. I can never go back home. I did things... _I_ wouldn't want me to come home after what I did. But... this...”

For the first time she dared reach out, softly touching Sara's cheek. “We are a family. The League is family. We can be your home.” She didn't say yet: “Stay with me. I want you here.” There was too much power in the thought.

That night, when Sara sat crying in the little room that she had been assigned as living quarters, Nyssa didn't walk past. Giving comfort wasn't pity, and feelings no weakness.

* * *

And Sara grew stronger, just like Nyssa had predicted. She slept better, didn't seek out or need Nyssa's comfort any longer. But when Sara for the first time since they'd known each other smiled at her, her whole face lighting up, Nyssa knew she was lost.

Of course, she was no innocent. She knew love. She knew pleasure. But she'd never fallen in love like this, never felt the power and helplessness that came with it.

* * *

Not even her father could deny Sara her place when she mastered the test. She had defeated three of her father's most trusted fighters and thus done the first step to becoming one of them. “Ta-er al-Sahfer,” he named her and bid her stand. Sara glanced at Nyssa then back at Ra's, bending her knees and bowing low as she had been taught, but something about the way she was holding herself had changed. “From now on you shall be know as Ta-er al-Sahfer.”

Nyssa had proposed the name, the meaning clear to her and Sara who had told her much about herself and the circumstances of her survival. But for some reason her beautiful bird did not look happy. Something in her eyes had hardened and she strode from the room her had held high without even looking Nyssa's way again. Only later would Nyssa find her, going through her katas, whirling around the room fighting an enemy that wasn't there. 

“You are one of us now,” Nyssa said and watched her, waiting for the right moment to jump in and joining this routine. 

“No,” Sara said and didn't flinch as her next strike was blocked by Nyssa's bow used just like Sara's fighting staff. She didn't pull her next punches either, nearly managing to place a well aimed hit, before Nyssa deflected it. “I'm the bird the cat dragged in.”

The metaphor amused Nyssa. “Are you calling me a cat?”

“Are _you_ calling me a bird?” Sara shot back with a hint of anger and frustration. “I'm not Ta-er al-Sahfer. I can't give up my name, Nyssa. I'm Sara Lance. That's all that's left of my family for me.”

“You have a new family now, Sara.” She deliberately stretched the name. “You're still you.”

“Am I?” Finally Sara stopped moving, let her weapon sink and her arms rest at her sides. “I don't feel like Sara anymore. I don't even remember what being Sara was like. Going to college, talking about boys, buying nice dresses... What was that all about?”

“Ta-er al-Sahfer is a title. It's an honor to wear it. It's not taking away your name. You're still my Sara.”

That got her attention and blue eyes snapped up to meet hers. “Your Sara?”

“You have a new family now, Sara, if you want it,” Nyssa repeated. “And more if you want me?”

Sara's whole body froze. “How can you even look at me and want me?”

“You can't see yourself, like I see you. Ta-er-al-Sahfer. Free and beautiful and strong. Stubborn. A survivor.” She nodded firmly at Sara and turned her back to leave, giving Sara the space to come to her own conclusions.

* * *

Sara kissed her during training, nearly two weeks later, impulsive and like she was testing a theory.

Nyssa held her in place and returned the kiss with passion, pushing her down on the floor.

In a way they both had found an answer.

* * *

Making love to Sara was fire, it was passion, it was light. Life. “I think I love you,” Sara whispered into her skin. “I think I've fallen in love with you.”

Their breasts were touching and Nyssa felt a jolt of pure lust go through her. They'd just had sex, but she could never get enough of Sara. “Sara,” she whispered into her ear. “My Ta-er-al-Sahfer.”

“When you say it like that, it actually sounds like an endearment. It sounds like a name that has meaning. When your father says it, it sounds like a burden I didn't ask for.”

Suddenly Nyssa had to chuckle into Sara's skin. “It's because you're mine,” she said and kissed her way along Sara's throat, her fingers ghosting along her stomach, back downwards towards their hidden goal.

The truth was altogether mote complicated. It was not uncommon for women to love women or men love men. It didn't mean much in the League as long as warriors chose worthy warriors.

But when Sara hissed in pleasure, moved her hips to make her fingers go deeper, and then moaned deep in her throat all the complexities didn't matter. This was simple. And it was perfection.

* * *

“You're my heir,” her father told her when she entered his throne room, not even waiting for her to stand before him. “You have responsibilities.”

“I know, father,” she said and bowed low. 

“I _know_ ,” he said simply. “I know everything that goes on in my city. And I want to caution you: Ta-er-al-Sahfer is not truly one of us. She was not made for this life and only time will reveal to us if she's more than a tainted girl washed up on our shores. Someday your bird will leave the cage to find her old life and it will be her end. Be careful daughter. You are my heir. You are my bloodline. And one day you will have to continue it.”

Nyssa nodded. She knew all that. They lived by ancient laws, held up an ancient code of honor and justice, but that didn't mean Nanda Parbat was cut off from the rest of the world. Women could have children without men hanging around. When the time came she could continue the bloodline and have Sara by her side. But Nyssa had no urge to be a mother just now.

Instead she told her father the only thing that mattered: “I lover her and that has to be enough.”

Ra's al-Ghul was not satisfied. He hadn't looked at Sara yet and seen her heart. For his only daughter only the best was good enough and he couldn't see the best in Sara. One day he would.

But he had always held up Nyssa to the highest standards and only after years of it had Nyssa come to understand that sometimes living up to the expectations of others, even when they were your family, was not the true way to happiness. But sometimes the family, the cause, just mattered more.

* * *

She had never felt truly alone until Sara left her. 

Only when Sara returned to her on her own did she understand that sometimes you needed to let go to keep the things you love. For the first time Nanda Parbat was not something that had happened to Sara, not a cage holding in Ta-er-al-Sahfer. It was her home.

Only when Sara did not return to her from a mission, slain in the city that once had been her home, Nyssa learned that without Sara her father's city didn't feel like home to her either.

But she was the heir. She had to live with her grief and follow her path, even if she wanted nothing more than to be with Sara. Death had never been a fate to be feared, but now she knew she was toying the edge of yearning for it. 

Her life went on and she tried to think about what Sara would have wanted for her. Until all she believed in came crashing down.

Nobody seemed to be interested in getting justice for the death of her beautiful Sara. Not Oliver Queen, whose love for Sara had been what had led her astray in the first place, not her father who was aware of Malcolm Merlyn and his manipulations and suddenly revealed that he was following his own agenda. For the first time she left the cage, ending up in Starling just like Sara had done when she'd left her. And living away from the League was strange, like her family had been ripped away, but also opened her eyes. She'd done her best to live up to her name and still now she was cut off. And maybe it was for the best.

Was this how Sara had felt cut off from her own family by circumstance and later realizing that having her own life away was actually for the best?

Her sister Laurel seemed to be the only person who shared her grief and for a while being a teacher again dulled the pain of being without her love, of being without a home. But the machinations of power caught up with her soon. 

“You kill him and now you want me to marry him?” she nearly spat.

“It's your duty as my heir to do this for the stability of the League.”

“I _am_ your heir,” she agreed. “Shouldn't I follow you?” she didn't ask.

“I allowed you your rebellion, Nyssa,” her father told her darkly. “But now that is over.”

She had never felt as much rage, but she knew how to hide it under a cold exterior. Hadn't she been brought up to be strong? To be just? To know her own worth? Wasn't this the man who had taught her not to be a pawn in anyone's game? Was this what all that was worth when it came to the power of Ra's al-Ghul? 

The thought made her nauseous.

Oliver Queen was going along with her father's plans, but Nyssa could see that something about it was just wrong. She remembered Sara and her training and looked at Oliver Queen and saw nothing that would make him the warrior she had been. As Sara had always told her: He was a good man, but he, like Sara, had been forged by tragedy. Sometimes that made it hard for him to see the world with an unclouded mind.

Her father thought her love for Sara was nothing but rebellion?

He'd not seen her rebel before. Rebellion, Sara had taught her, was sometimes the only way to exist, to fill the void in your life.

* * *

Sara came back to life with a gasp. The water of the Lazarus pit sloshing over the floor around Nyssa's feet as Sara struggled to stay upright and get air into her lungs. Even her struggle was beautiful, struggling for life and living, breathing. Nyssa could appreciate it even more now, after everything. She needed this: Her strong beautiful survivor, her one true love, to stand at her side as she fought the battle that was ahead.

When Sara's pale blue eyes settle on her, there was a wildness to them. Disorientation, fear. She immediately caught herself, ready to strike out. Then she noticed Nyssa.

“Nyssa?”

“Sara,” her voice broke on the name, relief and love constricting her throat, taking her breath away. She felt like crying.

“I was dead,” Sara said, looking around, realizing where she was and putting two and two together.

“You were,” she nodded.

“And you brought me back.” She slowly heaved herself from the water, her naked skin, restored and rosy, full of life. Nyssa truly had never seen anything more beautiful in her life. There was no need to hide it. She stepped towards Sara, wrapped her in a fierce embrace, pulling her against her chest and kissed her.

“Hi,” Sara said, after the kiss ended. 

“Hi,” Nyssa said and grinned. She knew she had never used this informal way of greeting before. And Sara knew it too.

“Thea... She...”

“She was manipulated by her father. She had no control over what she was doing. He used her like a pawn, a weapon. _He_ killed you to manipulate Oliver Queen.”

“How long was I gone?” Her arms wound around Nyssa as if she needed to hold on for dear life, like she needed Nyssa to ground her in the here and now.

“Too long,” Nyssa whispered. It was hard to speak, hard to even think of it. 

Sara was touching her face with still damp hands, forcing her to meet her eyes. “You're crying, Nyssa.”

“You were dead.”

Slowly, Sara smiled. “I seem to come back from that a lot.” 

Of course they both knew that coming back after being presumed dead and having yourself be resurrected by a Lazarus Pit were far from the same thing, but the cocky joke and smile were all that Nyssa had yearned for in her lonely nights and she did not want to think if death any longer. They kissed again and she helped Sara to get down from the little platform she was still leaning on. “We have to go,” she urged. “There is no time. They can't know what I've done... We need to be careful.”

“They? What?” Sara didn't stumble after her, catching herself and following on naked feet. “Nyssa? What have you done? Did you defy...?”

“My father is dead. Malcolm Merlyn has taken the place of Ra's al-Ghul. The League serves him now and so do I.” She ushered Sara into small room where she'd prepared clothes for her. “I'll have to stay my love. But nobody will know, you're back.” 

She kissed Sara once more, before she put a new suit in her hands.

“You were his heir. You should have taken his place,” Sara said fiercely. “How did Merlyn...?”

“It doesn't matter how,” Nyssa said and grinned. It twisted like knife in her gut to think that after everything it had been so easy for Merlyn to secure the loyalty of the League. He was the new Ra's and people obeyed. Even Nyssa obeyed, bidding her time – and she knew she wasn't the only one waiting for a chance to strike. People remembered her father, they remembered Ra's and they remembered who was the true heir to the demon. Now none of that seemed important though, with Sara and alive and restored leaning into her embrace.“What matters is that you are alive. We'll get our justice for the wrongs he did.”

“And we will set things right.” Sara nodded, her expression no longer one of confusion, but of determination. She looked at the white suit Nyssa had shoved into her hands and grabbed for it, putting it on. There was a mirror in the corner and she looked herself over critically. “I look like a ghost.”

It was so fitting. “Any you will be a ghost in a way. My ghost, Sara.”

“Ta-er-al-Sahfer,” Sara said and met Nyssa's surprised gaze in the mirror. “I am Ta-er-al-Sahfer.”

“There is no longer any need for...”

“Ta-er-al-Sahfer,” she repeated. “You chose that name for me, I know it. You're the only one I told about the canary. _You_ chose that name for me, not your father, and I will wear it with pride.” She whirled around suddenly and fell to her knee in front of Nyssa, bowing her head in the way that she'd been taught to kneel before Ra's al-Ghul. “You are Ra's al-Ghul. Soon, I promise.”

All the tension, all the anger and fear, the loneliness and the feeling of being cut off from her family – it all went away as the endless love and joy she was feeling chased them out. Impulsively she grabbed Sara by the arm and pulled her up to stand beside her. “We'll make it so, together, Ta-er-al-Sahfer, my beautiful white bird returned to me.”

Many stepping stones were still before them. Sara had missed a lot in her absence – Nyssa would never again think of it as death. She had no idea that her sister was now fighting her own fight as the Black Canary in her sister's stead; no idea that Oliver Queen had abandoned his mission. Nyssa would need to tell her all that had happened. But she knew who her enemy was and that Nyssa would have her stand beside her.

They had come a long way.

Sara kissed her and whispered in her ear: “Then let me worship you.”

A shudder of anticipation went through her whole body, her knees suddenly weak. “Let's get out of here first. We can't have people discover you're alive. Especially not when I'm ravishing you.”

The impish smile on Sara's lips was gift enough. The month of her having been dead were nothing more than a bad nightmare now. 

“You brought me back to life,” she whispered. “It's not the first time that you saved me, Nyssa.”

“I love you.”

And nothing more had to be said. She grabbed her lover's hand and led her out of the complex. They were not in Nanda Parbat, but at one of the hidden Lazarus Pits that not even the new Ra's al-Ghul knew of, yet. They ran out into the night, hidden by shadows, as once Nyssa had led a frightened girl through dark streets to meet her fate.

Nyssa knew who she was again and who she wanted to be. But most importantly she knew she would not have to make her way through life alone.


End file.
